How old were you on your first build?

sanj101

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 27, 2005
Messages
448
Hey,
Im 14 and I finally decided to build a pc (specs in sig) and all I need now is graphics and im done :) . My parents know next to nothing about computers so its a solo job for me.

I was wondering how old where you when you first built your pc?
 
11, had a role model friend who was a self taught computer technician I knew from church. Would always follow him around asking him questions and he helped me pick out my k6. :D
 
I had help building mine the first time. I was 18. Built mine all alone at 22 (turning 23 soon)
 
I'm 13, and planning to build my first rig within thew next month :p. The only knowledge of computers is what I have acquired is from the internet, and a close friend of mine (same age as me) that has an equal amount of knowledge.
 
14.....The summer of 2000

Abit KA7
AMD K7 700mhz Slot A
128mb of PC133 (I payed $120 for that stick!!!!)
Diamond Viper V770 Ultra

I loved that machine.
 
19, my uncle guided me through it. Now that I think about it, I really need to thank him, he helped me save so much money.
 
17...like i am now...it was my b-day present 2 myself (specs in sig)...

looking to get a good air cooler on my gtx + cpu or even water cool for xmas.

that swiftech kit looks really nice.
 
15, with help from my buddy, and then 16 I upgraded to my current system and totally rebuilt my dad's computer without help.
 
17-18, I think.. Amd K6-2 333.. got rid of it for a PII 350 back before my freshman year of college.
 
13, 1996

Or maybe 1995... hrm. My memory is hazy. If I could find an accurate list of CPU release dates I'd know.
 
12 or 13 not sure all i know is i didnt know what Static electricty was and 500+$ down the drain :-/
 
16ish I think. Was a 2000+ XP, MSI KT4VL, 40gig HD, and a GF4 MX(SHIT). But I was soooooo proud of myself after I was done. LOL I built it because I played the UT2K3 Demo at CompUSA and wanted a PC to play it on. Parents would not buy me one so I built one :D
Good times and it's one of the better decisions I've made in my life.
 
If a C64 counts, then I would have to say around 9 years old. I didnt really build it, but then again, it isnt a lot different from what you guys are "building". Just finding the best peices that fit your budget/need, plugging it all in, getting stressed out and sweating, hopeing that your pride and joy will work without problems. Then, tweak the damn thing to your hearts content over the next few years, and buy countless upgrades and games.

I had two 5 1/4 floppy drives, the 1541's. One printer, using the HotShot cartridge. Epix fastload, I figured out how to set one drive to 8,1 and one to 9,1, so I had true dual drives. Amdec II color monitor (basically a tv with just audio and video inputs). I rigged up a pair of Packard bell amplified computer speakers to the C64s output, it was a nice gaming machine.

Moved onto a Toshiba T1100 Plus. 8086 Cpu, 640k ram, dual 720K floppy drives... I rebuild the powersupply. The thing went up in smoke. Fixed her up. Loaded windows 1.01 onto it. I got a lot of shit from my teachers, because windows 1.01 wouldnt print out the right font on my impact printer.

So, I moved onto an Amd K5-133, which I promptly upgraded to 64 megs of ram, SB16 soundcard (which beats the pants off my new S939 mobos onboard sound), 2 gig hard drive. I played GTA london, DOOM, wolfenstien, and descent I untill the wee hours of the morning. This was about age 14.

Getting hooked on computers, honestly, was the best damn thing to ever happen to me. In a couple of months here, I will be working on aircraft Hydraulics. Ive learned somewhat on how to fabricate things out of metal, do some bodywork and painting, repair some things on cars, Im into PIC microcontrollers, high voltage... mostly electronics, cars, and comptuers.

It all started because I wanted to tweak the stupid commodore, I wanted more power, more features, more bells and whistels to spend my time tweaking. it later evolved into building things for tweaking, building my own cases, modifiying switchmode powersupplies to run on 12 volts, painting cases, then onto building scooters, painting them, restored one 1953 cushman. MIG, stick welding, plasmacutting, bending angles in steel, bending tubing, sandblasting, welding and heating with oxy/acetaline... All things leaned are the result of me wanting to mod something, where no mod was avalible/too expensive to buy.

All of this shit wouldn't have happened if I never would have gotten that C64. Who knows what could have happened, I could have turned out like some of my friends who dont even know how to send emails, and work on farms or dead-end jobs at grocery stores. :p

My next project was going to convert a few older Pentium 1/ amd K6 laptops into an outdoor wireless network point, which me and my friends were going to mount on roofs. I had UPS's modded in there, solid state storage, parabolic antennas... Basically, a 24/7 lan party while being at home. I ran out of time for that, but... I have some crazy ideas that Im planning on doing one day.
 
First (and only so far) build was over this summer after HS graduation, so I was 18. Really had no computer experience beyond basic use and very occasional gaming until last November when we (as in my family) needed a new PC, so I started looking into what we should get. Then, after gaining a bit of interest in the stuff, I decided to build my college PC instead of going OEM. It's worked out great so far!
 
i was born in '86 :eek:

i think my first computer i built myself from scratch was when i was 14, an aXP and some other assorted stuff

i've tweaked components for about 2 years before that though, and had been figuring out how to oc my dell 266.. i found the jumper that let you change the multiplier :cool:
 
LordVampyre said:
Lets see was 1986... so I was 34 or there about... man that seem soooo long ago

That was before most of the people in this thread were born.
 
bob said:
If a C64 counts, then I would have to say around 9 years old. I didnt really build it, but then again, it isnt a lot different from what you guys are "building". Just finding the best peices that fit your budget/need, plugging it all in, getting stressed out and sweating, hopeing that your pride and joy will work without problems. Then, tweak the damn thing to your hearts content over the next few years, and buy countless upgrades and games.

......

+1

but I was about 14 when I got mine? :D

I've been thinking about my ol C64 recently actually, and my parents just moved and took all thier stuff out of storage. I need to go over there and find it, I know it was in thier stuff somewhere. Should still have the ol 1541 and tape drive around in the boxes. I think I had my ol Atari 2600 packed away there as well. I'm down for some Kaboom! again.
 
Let's see... first solo build was back when I was 10... so, that'd be circa 1995

w00t for old, slow computers! :D
 
I was 15, and managed to weasel the build into a "school thesis project" at the experimental high school I attended. The school comp'd me with 50% of all expenses and let me build the system over a week long period during school hours. 4 other friends of mine did the same thing and needless to say, it took us half a day and we spent the rest of the week "benchmarking" extensively by playing Quake 1 TDM and CS beta on the schools T1. :p

Specs were Dual P3 500s, Geforce 256, mobo I cant remember, w/ 256mb of ram and a diamond MX400 sound card. I actually used the case for that machine to hold the rig Im on right now. ;)
 
1988 so that would be 23yo needless to slay it was a kick ass system for its time. 10mb HDD i believe
 
15. Parents wouldn't let me buy an xbox so i decided to build a PC to play games on instead :p
 
16....Not long ago actually. Could have done it much earlier, but had no need/money to do it.
 
17. Just finished building mine 2 months ago, saved up for a loooong time.
 
Did my first total build last year @ 27 :D, never too late to start eh :p
 
my first was my sophomore year in college. ive built several since then but not for myself sadly. good memories...i remember not knowing how much force was needed to put the RAM modules into the slots...i thought i was going to crack the motherboard :eek:
the system im running was the system i built back then: a socket 478 system running a northwood 2.6c which overclocked rather nicely on stock air cooling. still my favorite system out of all my builds (because it was the first).
 
1998 when I was 27, I built my very first comp from the ground up ! Though I'd been "messing" with them since 1982...an Apple IIc and Comodore PET in Jr. HS....ah, life before windows !
 
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